


Every Me Loves Every You

by Cyanide_Kettle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Coulson Lives, Light Angst, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:05:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1162844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyanide_Kettle/pseuds/Cyanide_Kettle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki did more than just play with Clint’s brain during his control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Me Loves Every You

**Author's Note:**

> As many plot bunnies do, this one bit me and would not release, so I’m taking a break from writing my massive WiP to...write fic. I kept picturing this scenario as something Loki would do, since he clearly didn’t care about Clint’s welfare in the movie. With all the AUs about them, it makes me feel the boys have a destined, spiritual connection. Thanks to you who have written AUs of the boys, they contribute to the wonderful feeling that Clint and Phil are meant for each other.

“All these combinations, and you and your agent are the constant. How...peculiar.”

The words echoed against the inside surface of Clint’s skull. The memory of mind control he could deal with, or would be able to, given some time. It was the taunting that would haunt him. The silky, cultured accent that whispered to his every insecurity. Even an arrow in the demigod’s eye socket wouldn’t have cured Clint’s lack of self-confidence.

Apparently he was worthwhile in every universe but this one.

He shouldn’t be ungrateful. Coulson was alive. Any universe with a living Phil Coulson was a good one. Resentment against magic broke down when the doctors realized that something residual from Loki’s staff was speeding the healing process. He couldn’t hate magic when it was actually helping.

Clint’s vigil at Coulson’s hospital bedside even had plenty of company. Natasha mostly, of course, but several agents, and the bunch of misfits called Avengers who had somehow saved the world. Fury himself spent considerable time yelling at the World Security Council from the hard plastic chair next to Coulson’s IV stand. 

Clint wouldn’t be thrown out of SHIELD on his ear, or shot for treason. Fury developed stringent new protocols and arranged drills, to prepare for rogue senior agents in the future. It would strengthen the organization, Fury said, after coming up against how spectacularly a rogue agent could ruin things from the inside. His consulting with Clint on the protocols did more for the archer’s psychological healing than any army of shrinks. Clint’s next employee evaluations would be interesting, but Fury declared that he could make the whole mind possession thing a positive in Clint’s favor. Clint had shown that the system needed work, and that Hawkeye was skilled enough to expose SHIELD’s weaknesses. Fury was weirdly proud of that.

The Director allowed a single breakdown of guilt. He gave Clint no absolution, he said, because it wasn’t necessary. If Fury’s comfort was an embrace, there were no other witnesses than an unconscious Coulson, and the existence of Nick Fury’s hug could only be a myth.

When Coulson woke up, Clint almost fled the room. He feared what liberties he might try to take, things that weren’t his, not in this universe. He stayed because the disappointment of others if he left was too great, and smiled and even gently squeezed Coulson’s arm. The older man kept seeking Clint out; Clint could feel those eyes on him in the midst of tears and cheerful welcome back greetings, and it hurt just that bit more that he couldn’t tell his handler and friend why he turned away.

He might have been saved from a solitary vigil, but he couldn’t keep up the right facade of happiness. Natasha cornered him a few days later: “What is it, bird?”

Clint looked away from her for a moment. The off-white wallpaper over her shoulder mocked him in its blandness. His world was bland now. He was glad for the lack of acidic colors behind his eyes, the kaleidoscope presence of Loki making it so easy for him to do awful things, free of the inhibition of conscience, but he missed other colors, shades from before. He missed the hope that came with a certain shade of red (Lola), a glint of ocean blue (eyes), red and black (ink on forms).

“I don’t know how to tell you,” he said.

“Try,” she said.

So he did. He tried, because she was closest to him now. “Loki showed me things,” he said. “He showed me huge golden halls that he told me were Asgard. He showed me this world of ice that was worse than Antarctica.” Clint didn’t close his eyes. He couldn’t bear to see the memory of images in the dark. He focused on the bend of fabric at Natasha’s collar. “I knew he was trying to show me how tiny he thought I was, how he thought about all humans. I could deal with that superiority complex...”

A huff of breath slid from Natasha at that, her version of anyone else’s much larger snort of humor. When she sobered, she pressed a hand to his forearm. “There’s more,” she prompted. “There’s always more when it comes to Loki, I think.”

Clint clenched his fist, feeling his muscles move under Natasha’s touch. “When the whole superior thing didn’t work, he...used another tactic.” He looked at her eyes then, letting her see the ache.

“Tell me,” she said, squeezing his arm, as caring and worried as she ever got.

It was useless not to tell her. “He started showing me all these...different realities. Some of them were nuts, Tasha. He showed me all of us, the Avengers, SHIELD, just...everyone I knew, only in different worlds.” The oddness of some of them made him almost able to smile. “You were married to Fury in one; it was like, steampunk Regency England or something.” He smirked a little at her expression. “Yeah, you were Lady Fury in that one. I owned a coffee shop in one universe.” He let himself smirk. “I was a stripper in one universe, because, of course.”

Natasha Romanoff didn’t scoff, but she kind of did. “I’m not feeding into that with a response,” she said.

“Of course you’re not. That was a pretty good world, though. Coulson was an actual vampire in one world.”

“That’s oddly fitting,” Natasha said. “He has the cool calmness for it.”

“You bet he does.” Clint let his smile slide away slower than he had for days. “There were even a few worlds where...uh, you and him and me, we were this threesome. I don’t see you that way,” he added quickly, “but it was nice to see, in those worlds where we clicked like that.”

A sharp Natasha-smile tilted her lips for a moment. “I could do worse than the two of you.” Actual high praise from her.

That acceptance was a comfort. Clint continued, “In some of them, we all had totally regular jobs, and that was so weird.” It wasn’t half as many alternate worlds as he’d been shown, but the full number of them was intimidating. “Maybe the everyday jobs were even more weird than this one where there were heats, and scents, and I’m pretty sure men could get pregnant in that universe.”

She didn’t arch that skeptical brow of hers at him. “That wouldn’t have intimidated you. Parallel universes aren’t much competition for magic or thunder gods or giant green monsters. What’s making you so...?”

“I don’t want to say it, Nat.”

Her expression did not waver. “You need to say it, bird.”

He closed his eyes then, seeing the outline of every alternate universe behind his lids. Seeing the one common thread in all of them. That thread cut at his heart like a silver garrote wire. “Tasha,” he whispered, “I can’t...”

“Clint.” She leaned close, hair almost brushing his jaw. Her presence meant to ground him. “Tell me, bird. Why are you hurting?”

He spoke it all in a rush, “Because in all of them, in every single universe that bastard showed me, Coulson and I...we were together.” He looked at her, finally confiding in her with his expression. “Every universe but this one. Every version of me loves every version of him, even if it was some epic star-crossed thing. That’s what Loki taunted me with, okay?” He hung his head, contemplated the stupid beige tiles at his feet. “That was the common thread. Coulson and me. Loki saw that, and he told me I must be unworthy in this reality. I don’t get to have him in this universe.”

“But you want him in this universe.”

“Of course I do! It’s so far beyond wanting... Tasha, I’ve been in love with him since those three weeks in New Delhi.”

“That was four years ago.”

“Yeah, well, pining doesn’t really have a timeframe, does it?”

A soft sound behind him had his every muscle freezing. Not quite a gasp, it filled the air in the medical room. Natasha glanced over Clint’s shoulder, and her poker face confirmed his fears. He pleaded for her help with his eyes. She didn’t waver, though, when her grip on his arm became a vise, and she pulled him across the room. It wasn’t worth the bruising for him to resist, so he went until he stood beside Coulson’s bed.

Still without a word, Natasha laid Clint’s hand on Coulson’s. Clint wished he could run. He looked down at the contrast of his own hand’s slight tan and Coulson’s fragile pale skin. He didn’t look at either of them but he knew Natasha was telling Coulson something with her eyes. When she left, he gripped the bed railing with his free hand just so his knees wouldn’t buckle.

“Clint.”

Damn it, why did he have to use first names? “I’m sorry.”

Another audible intake of breath. “Don’t be sorry,” Coulson said. “Never for your feelings.”

Clint couldn’t respond to that. He kind of wished he was brave enough to wrap his fingers around Coulson’s, just to have that single taste of how touching the man could feel. Instead he focused on the fine dark hairs over Coulson’s wrist. Even those were beautiful.

He didn’t jump or yank free when Coulson tentatively dragged his thumb over Clint’s knuckles, but it was a close thing. This was it, nearly more than Clint could take. Coulson was tormenting him. Teasing him with a touch of what he wouldn’t have in this universe.

“Every other reality?” Coulson murmured.

Clint swallowed hard before his tongue would work. “Every single one,” he said, because why not just vent all his misery? “Some were pretty far-fetched. I mean, us turning into corgis? That’s-”

“Clint. Look at me. Please.”

Those eyes were the bluest they’d ever been, against the starkness of white sheets. Clint couldn’t hide anything from them. Coulson looked tired, but lucid. He’d always responded well to painkillers, so his dosage was low. Clint wanted to reach out and wipe away the dark circles under those eyes, brush some color into those pale cheeks. He wanted to see those freckles again. Anything else he saw in those eyes couldn’t be real. Couldn’t be his.

“You have me in every universe,” Coulson said softly.

Clint blinked, denying his own tears like a champion. “Except this one,” he clarified. “Obviously I don’t deserve-”

“That’s Loki talking.”

How was the man still unflappable while reclined in what could have been his own deathbed? “No, really,” Clint sighed; “I’m not dumb. This world’s the only exception? Clearly some factor has to be different, to make it...to make you not...” He trailed off. The metaphorical hole he’d dug for himself was deep enough. He looked down at his hand clenching the guardrail as if he could bend the metal.

Smooth fingers squeezed his. Coulson’s strength was muted now, but not gone. “No one said I don’t,” Coulson said.

Almost freezing like a startled animal, Clint looked to Coulson’s face again. Nothing but open and earnest eyes looked back. The eyes that he’d seen in countless different realities, gazing at alternate versions of Clint with feelings he swore he would never see in his Coulson’s eyes.

“Phil?” he asked, because if they were discussing this, he sure as hell was using the man’s first name.

“Every universe,” Phil repeated. “You don’t see that, Clint?” His thumb pressed warmth into the back of Clint’s hand. “I-I was going to say something at the Pegasus facility...but you know how that turned out.” He looked shy, and far too young for the amazing agent he actually was. “It would have been one of my bigger regrets.” His shyness became some type of vulnerability, and for the first time Clint wondered about past heartbreak in Phil Coulson’s life.

“I need to kiss you now,” Clint said, overwhelmed.

“Yes,” Phil said, “please.”

How did one describe the first kiss from someone who had held your heart for years? Someone who already knew all the scars and nightmares? Phil tasted faintly of hospital, but mostly of himself. Clint admitted he whimpered, just a bit. When Phil turned the kiss slightly dirty, licking against Clint’s lips, Clint almost forgot where they were and almost climbed into the bed with the man.

“How am I worthy of you,” he breathed over Phil’s lips when they separated.

“Because you’re incredible.” Phil released Clint’s hand and slid his touch up to Clint’s neck. “Because I don’t see how I’m worthy of you. Because apparently it’s fate, we’re meant to be together, we need each other, or something.”

“How long?” Clint asked around the lump in his throat.

“I realized in Tripoli, but it was probably before that.”

“I love you,” Clint blurted. “Serious, all through my body, love.” He kissed the inside of Phil’s wrist. “I might even believe in fate, now.”

The warmth of Phil’s palm spread over Clint’s jaw as the man stroked the soft spot behind Clint’s ear. “Dozens of alternate universes can’t be wrong, can they?” He smiled. “I love you, too.” He traced his thumb over Clint’s lips. “So much.”

“So much, one universe can’t contain it,” Clint said, feeling giddy. “Looks like Loki sabotaged himself when he showed me, after all.”

“I almost want to tell him how grateful I am, to see the fit he’d throw.” Phil slid his fingers into Clint’s hair and pulled them into another kiss. “I am yours and you are mine,” he said. “Every last one of us.”


End file.
